Hello, good evening, happy Wednesday. It is finally getting hot in Chicago! There were also gusts of wind so hard yesterday that they blew my new boombox over and it got scratched on the concrete, but, oh well. I’ll figure out how to smooth it out. I probably should have done an additional edition of the newsletter over the last week because of how much content there is in this one. Maybe next week. Lmao.
Stop the presses
Man, this is just sad:
When the Chicago Tribune moved the last of its printing operations from the basement of Tribune Tower to the Freedom Center in 1982, the new $185 million plant by the Chicago River was billed as the largest newspaper production facility in North America.
On Saturday, the Freedom Center printed its final edition of the Chicago Tribune before facing a demolition deadline and planned redevelopment into a casino. Tribune Publishing is shifting printing operations to the northwest suburban Daily Herald plant, which it purchased in May 2023.
A bankruptcy of manners
Yes, yes, Red Lobster bankruptcy. But what about customer etiquette:
Red Lobster officially filed for bankruptcy Monday, after a grim week that saw nearly 100 stores shut down around the country. The restaurant chain has cycled through multiple owners and leadership cabals over the past 10 years, and each of them attempted to stabilize the chain, to no avail. One of these rescue plans was the restaurant’s now-infamous Endless Shrimp promotion—in which, for $20, customers could order an unlimited supply of fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, or “street corn shrimp” to their table. The plan, as far as I can tell, was for guests to fill up on just enough shellfish to preserve Red Lobster’s profit margin. It backfired spectacularly: The restaurant’s clientele scarfed down enough shrimp to accumulate an $11 million operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Abolish qualified immunity
Here is a fucking awesome opinion from a federal judge:
For nearly two years, the State of Mississippi falsely accused Desmond Green of capital murder. A detective used a lying, drug-impaired jailhouse informant to lock Green up. The detective also steered the informant to select Green’s face from a photo lineup. It was a horrifying wrong.
Qualified immunity is a terrible and fake doctrine that should be abolished. Want to learn more? Read on!
Out with the bath water
Payment processors are the final boss of the internet:
In 2019, adult creator Belle Delphine had grown a massive following on Instagram (she would later be banned from the platform) as a cosplayer and model. Posing in a pink wig and cat ears, she had a knack for lightly trolling her extremely online fans. When she announced she was going to sell jars of her "gamergirl bathwater" for $30 apiece, the stunt went viral, and she sold hundreds of jars within three days.
Voluntary poisoning
Elsewhere in things you should not consume:
Sales of raw milk appear to be on the rise, despite years of warnings about the health risks of drinking the unpasteurized products — and an outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows.
Since March 25, when the bird flu virus was confirmed in U.S. cattle for the first time, weekly sales of raw cow’s milk have ticked up 21% to as much as 65% compared with the same periods a year ago, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ.
Inside the house
The bad guns are coming from the cops:
Candace Leslie was leaving church when she got the call she will never forget.
"All I heard was his girlfriend yelling in the phone, and she was like, 'Cameron! Cameron! ... He won't get up. He won't get up!'"
Someone shot Leslie's son four times that Sunday evening in September 2021 outside his new apartment on Indianapolis's northeast side.
Wealth for health
There are some therapists on TikTok I genuinely like, but this article is spot on:
Dr. Julie Smith is sitting behind a rainbow of five Post-it notes, each meant to represent one of the “Top Five Signs of High-Functioning Depression.” Said signs will be familiar to anyone who has spent time scrolling through the part of social media devoted to improving one’s mental health: “You do everything the world asks of you, so no one would ever know you feel empty inside,” you don’t find pleasure in the same things anymore, social events are tiring. Perhaps you relate to No. 3: “You find yourself scrolling on social, watching hours of TV, and eating junk food to numb those feelings.”
You deserve some good animal content
https://x.com/dog_auras/status/1793408245174071485
https://x.com/twaniimals/status/1793403482352894042
https://x.com/CATBRAINCELL/status/1793367333039439886
https://x.com/GoldretrieverUS/status/1793354961465627025
https://x.com/twaniimals/status/1793302541146402963
https://x.com/mischiefanimals/status/1793281333625499975
https://x.com/dog_auras/status/1793279944266510438
https://x.com/raccoonhourly/status/1793107032628776977
Have a good week.
Addendums
Lost In Translation: Migrant Kids Struggle In Segregated Chicago Schools. Chicago police, city officials appear to miss goals on meeting requirement to report and review when officers point their weapons. Who’s in Brandon Johnson’s cabinet? Many are holdovers from the administrations he often criticizes. What The Viral Fake Bus Hammock TikTok Says About Staged Videos. OnlyFans model who flashed NYC-Dublin portal same woman who told Dr. Phil she’d rather ‘die hot than live ugly’.